“Quite a while ago. What you were before your succession, you know better than I.” He caught the point. “Rodney Carteret, at your service,” he replied. “Here on a short stay. Diplomatic affairs.” “Well, Mr. Carteret, I’ll remember you forever, for helping me out of an awful scrape. It must seem dreadfully flitter-headed and bad taste and ill-bred—” “I can imagine you being flitter-headed—odd words you Americans use—but I really can’t conceive of you doing anything ill-bred or in bad taste,” said he with such sincerity that the girl flushed again. “That’s nice of you,” she responded gratefully, “considering what I’ve done to you.” Thereupon she proceeded to repay his courtesy by a tissue of fabrications which did credit to her long practice in mendacity. “You wouldn’t understand our American humor,” she wound up; “but I put up a joke on my friends in the other car by pretending I was to be married yesterday. I won’t bore you with the circumstances. I was going away for a trip all by my little self and they were to think it was my wedding trip. Who would have thought there could be such awful luck as to find them on my train? And me without a ghost of a husband to show on my honeymoon—until I grabbed you!” “Then you’re not actually married or betrothed or anything of the sort?” he inquired with lively hopefulness. “Oh, but I am engaged,” she answered, reverting to her original fiction. “My fiancé is on duty and can’t get away. As soon as he comes over we’re to be married. Now, please, do you think it’s _very_ awful? You’ve been so good, I should hate to have you despise me.” “Oh, I’m no sort of a despiser,” he assured her. “And if I felt like doing a bit of despising, I’d go out in the woods and despise a toad. Certainly I shouldn’t try my hand on anything as plucky and resourceful as you.” “Resourcefulness is good as far as it goes,” said she. “But could I carry the thing through if my friends come back here and I have to present you?” “I shouldn’t concern myself about that,” he comforted her. “Surely they won’t come.” “Why not?” “Bridal touring couples don’t commonly go about seeking other companionship, do they?” Darcy stared. “How do you know they are on their bridal trip? I never told you.” “Surmised it from something my friend, Mr. Thomas Harmon told me.” “Do _you_ know Mr. Harmon?” “Rah-ther! I’m on my way to his place.” “What place?” gasped Darcy. “Boulder Brook, he calls it. It’s up on the edge of the mountains.” The girl leaned back, closed her eyes, and began to count slowly: “One—two—three—four—” “I say,” broke in the partner of her plot. “Let a chap in on this. What’s wrong?” “You said it just now: ‘These things do _not_ happen to people.’ You were right. They don’t. Anyhow, they ought not to be allowed to. Five—six—seven—Oh, there’s no use counting ten on this.” She opened her great, gray-blue eyes wide upon him. “So’m I,” she announced. “So’m you _what?_” “Going to Boulder Brook.”